Tomassen Duck-To seems not interested in any of our animal-welfare recommendations. In May 2017 we brought an unannounced visit to Tomassen Duck-To and spoke to one of their managers about welfare during catching, loading and stunning of ducks. At that moment we were not allowed to enter the slaughter area because the manager had to first get permission from the director. He promised us to ask the director and get back in touch with us, so that we could eventually visit their slaughterhouse and share practical recommendations to reduce suffering.

Since then we have not heard back from Tomassen Duck-To, despite even us sending them several emails. Unfortunately Tomassen Duck-To still uses an electric-water bath to stun their birds. For animal-welfare reasons most poultry slaughterhouses in the Netherlands have already changed to gas stunning because of the short-comings of the electric-water bath system. Ducks too can be stunned with gas. We would have really liked to talk with Tomassen Duck-To about proper stunning systems and other methods to reduce suffering during catching, loading and slaughter. We are very disappointed that a so called “modern slaughterhouse” like Tomassen Duck-To seems to have no interest to reduce suffering as much as possible.